Innocent man is freed after 7 years

COURTS Wrongful conviction in Oakland shooting overturned

Updated 5:42 am, Saturday, February 23, 2013

Ronald Ross greets his mother, Thelma Ross, after his conviction was overturned. Witnesses recanted their identification, and one was confirmed to have lied on the stand.

Ronald Ross greets his mother, Thelma Ross, after his conviction was overturned. Witnesses recanted their identification, and one was confirmed to have lied on the stand.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

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Ronald Ross contains his emotions as he walks into his mother's home for the first time after being freed from prison.

Ronald Ross contains his emotions as he walks into his mother's home for the first time after being freed from prison.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Innocent man is freed after 7 years

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In an emotional courtroom scene, a 51-year-old man who was wrongly convicted of a 2006 shooting in Oakland wept Friday as he was ordered released by a judge after spending nearly seven years behind bars.

Hours later, Ronald Ross stepped out of Santa Rita Jail in Dublin into a bright afternoon, vindicated by a team of volunteer lawyers who argued that he had been the victim of poor police work and lies by a series of witnesses.

"I can feel sunshine and breathe clean air again," said Ross, who hugged his private investigator, Keith McArthur, before facing a bank of television cameras. "Today is a lovely day. It's past a good day. It's a blessed day."

The pinnacle of the day was Judge Jon Rolefson's order to release Ross just after 10 a.m., which prompted the exonerated man to break down in an Oakland courtroom, dropping his head and sobbing for about 10 minutes.

"Congratulations, Mr. Ross," Rolefson said. He said the justice system had failed him for a while, but that "the important thing is that in the final process, justice is achieved."

Alameda County prosecutors agreed with defense attorneys that Ross' conviction should be thrown out. Rolefson did just that Wednesday, vacating Ross' 25-years-to-life sentence for attempted murder and assault with a firearm.

All that was left was for prosecutors to drop the original charges, which they did in court Friday.

'Thank you, Jesus'

Before the hearing ended, the judge allowed Ross' mother, 77-year-old Thelma Ross, to give him a hug. She walked slowly with a cane to the defense table and then began to weep as the two embraced.

"Oh Lord," she cried, over and over. "Thank you, Jesus."

Outside the Alameda County Superior Court building, Thelma Ross said she felt "like I was in the Garden of Eden. God brought me through. It felt good."

Ronald Ross said after being freed that he had once been deeply angry about his plight, and that life behind bars - much of it spent at San Quentin State Prison - had been tough. He referred to fellow inmates who committed suicide or were stabbed.

But he found hope, he said, in the Scriptures and his attorneys, whom he called his "dream team of angels."

'A second chance'

Ross said he hoped to go on vacation, take two nieces to a Los Angeles Clippers basketball game and reunite with his four children in Louisiana - who range in age from 26 to 33 - and his father, whom he hasn't seen in almost 30 years.

"God is showing me a second chance," he said.

Ross was convicted of shooting Renardo Williams in the chest April 15, 2006, on Williams' doorstep at the Campbell Village apartments in West Oakland.

Williams told police that he believed he had been shot as a result of a previous dispute with a 14-year-old boy and his mother, Nikki Stuart. He said the boy had been with the gunman, who he believed was the boy's father.

That man is Steven Embrey Sr., 40, who has a violent criminal history.

Fateful photo

But the investigating officer, Sgt. Steven Lovell, testified that he had put a picture of Ross - not Embrey - in a photo lineup that he showed to Williams as he lay wounded at Highland Hospital.

Lovell said Ross' only connection to those involved in the case was that he was once a neighbor of Stuart's. He said he had presented the lineup to Williams to "show that the police department was at least doing something."

Williams told Lovell his assailant was bald. But he picked Ross, who had a full head of hair, out of the six-photo lineup.

Lovell's police report says that when Williams identified Ross, he said he thought he was picking out the 14-year-old boy's father.

After that, Ross became the focus of the investigation. At his trial, three people identified him as the shooter: Williams, Stuart's son and another 14-year-old boy who claimed to have witnessed the shooting.

Lead not pursued

Lovell testified that he had never tried to find Embrey during his investigation. The officer, who retired from the Oakland force soon after the shooting, has not responded to messages from The Chronicle.

Ross lost an appeal of his conviction in 2008. After that, his case was taken on by attorneys from the San Francisco law firm Keker and Van Nest and the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University.

McArthur, the private investigator, tracked down the key witnesses, some of whom had moved away from Oakland, others incarcerated.

Witnesses recanted

Ultimately, attorneys said, Williams and Embrey's son recanted their identifications of Ross, while new evidence showed the third witness hadn't actually been in a position to see the shooting.

Prosecutors said this week that they had lost faith in the conviction after confirming that Stuart lied at trial when she said she knew nothing about the shooting. In fact, prosecutors said, she told a close friend that Embrey had shot Williams.

Embrey is now at Santa Rita Jail, accused of an Oakland crime spree in July 2011. Prosecutors have no plans to charge him with shooting Williams.

Oakland police are planning a review of the case and how it was handled, said Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff to Police Chief Howard Jordan.

One of Ross' attorneys, Jo Golub, said Ross had "always believed it would come out right in the end. He was unshakable about that."

Golub recalled one of the first things Ross said on the day she met him at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County. It was the summer of 2008.

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